Houston returned to Reliant Park for the second time in three days to practice at the Methodist Training Center (also known as the Texans’ bubble) in order to let their home practice fields dry up sufficiently and not only did the Cougars get a lot of work in, they also had several visitors in the form of recruits.

Namely, Sharpstown linebacker Reggie Chevis.

Chevis

Chevis, a 6-2, 238-pound linebacker who has more than a dozen offers from Division I programs, visited the Cougars practice again on Wednesday. Chevis was at UH practice on Monday and also attended the Cougars’ junior day on Saturday, making it the third time in five days that Chevis has been around the Cougars.

It appears that he’s growing an affinity for the Cougars.

“It’s really been a blessing and an honor to get an offer from UH,” Chevis said. “Getting a chance to see all they have to offer…I never knew they had so much (on campus). I’ve been to UH on numerous occasions but I hadn’t seen all the buildings and all the new construction. They’re going to have a lot of new things so I want to see how that goes. As far as the recruiting process, it’s going very well. UH is looking pretty good at this point.”

Chevis said he’s been to a couple of other junior days but said UH’s was the best he has been to thus far. He said he likes head coach Tony Levine and the defensive staff, most of whom he has had the chance to meet. Chevis said he loves the city of Houston and he’s currently planning to attend the spring games of both Houston and Texas A&M. The Aggies are one of five Big 12 schools (Baylor, Iowa State, Texas Tech and soon-to-be official Big 12 member TCU are the others) that have offered Chevis. He also has offers from LSU, West Virginia and Purdue.

“I’m going to go wherever I feel comfortable,” Chevis said. “If there’s a place in Alaska that has the softest pillows, if that place is comfortable, that’s where I’ll be going. I just want to go where I feel comfortable.”

Bellaire running back Denzell Evans, who verbally committed to the Cougars on Saturday at junior day, was also in attendance with teammates Dwayne Johnson and Charles Sanders, a pair of junior offensive tackles at Bellaire.

• • •

Bubble teamWith the coaches hoping to allow the UH practice fields to dry some more after the rain early in the week, the Cougars took to the “Texans’ bubble” at Reliant Park on Wednesday, the second time this week for UH. Levine said it has been a positive experience for his team.

“it’s a good change of scenery for our kids,” Levine said. “It was kind of neat. As coaches we enjoyed it and I figured the kids did and the other night I actually got three or four text messages from our players saying ‘Thank you for putting this together.’ So I can’t thank the Texans enough for letting us come over here. Chris Pezman, our director of football operations worked here for 10 years so he was able to arrange this on short notice. It’s been a blessing, perfect conditions and our kids have enjoyed it.”

Competition continues at safetyLast week, the Cougars made some shifts in their defensive backfield, moving Jeffery Lewis and Chris Cermin to work with the first team defense at the safety spots and moving Kent Brooks and Colton Valencia from working with the ones to the twos. On Wednesday, there was some rotation during the live periods and Brooks and Valencia saw some series with the first team again. Cermin and Lewis also got snaps with the first team defense and there were some other situational subs at linebacker and defensive line as well.

Levine said the battle is continuing at those spots between all four of those players.

“It’s competition, still, probably at its finest,” Levine said. “I think we rotated them (Brooks and Valencia) in there to go against a little more speed that we have in our no. 1 offense. It’s still a competition between Colton Valencia and Kent Brooks and Jeffery Lewis and Chris Cermin. All four of them are competing and nothing’s changed.”

Progress for Pulliam
Redshirt freshman Desmond Pulliam played a lot of positions in high school, but defensive end wasn’t one of them. But the 6-0, 250-pounder has spent the spring taking repetitions there and is learning the position where the Cougars feel like he can provide some speed and explosiveness off the edge.

“He’s done a great job,” Levine said. “At his high school down in Louise (Texas) he played running back, linebacker and was on every special teams unit. He actually kicked off for them and ran down and made tackles. He never came off the field in high school but now he’s playing a totally different position and he’s a 6-0, 6-1 kid with long arms and 250 pounds and he’s only going to get bigger. He has great speed and I think it’s a perfect fit for him. He’s very raw but his technique’s good.

Odds and ends
Speaking of Pulliam, he was one of two Cougars to make the transition to defensive end as spring football started. The other was sophomore Jon Witten, who had several sacks in the first week of camp and impressed the coaches enough to start getting reps with the first team. But his progress was halted on Saturday when he suffered a sprained knee. He’ll be out for the remainder of the spring but he should be fine for fall camp.